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Archbishop Mark Coleridge: What is he all about?

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This is the bishop that decided to judge and condemn in an unprecedented way, as soon as he realized Catholics everywhere in this country were reading the messages given through MDM and praying the prayers. He immediately wrote a letter which appeared in every Catholic Church, Catholic newspapers, and read out by parish priests in (in many places with angry sermons) also preached condemning them. This concerted attack was quite unexpected. It was obvious he had not read the messages, nor had the other priests. I made a mental note to keep an eye on him. During the synod, I saw some of his comments, and since then much has unfolded and is still unfolding, becoming progressively worse.

Just in case, you may still doubt his agenda, see extracts and headlines below:

“It’s also clear that those voices, clinging desperately to some imagined or ideologised past, cannot point the way into the future. History will have its way, however much we try to cling to illusions of timelessness.”

“ … a second marriage that is enduring and stable and loving, and where there are children who are cared for is not the same as a couple skulking off to a hotel room for a wicked weekend. So, the rubrik “audultery” in one sense is important, but in another sense it doesn’t say enough. And I think what a pastoral approach requires is that we actually enter into what the Synod is calling a “genuine pastoral dialogue of discernment” with these couples…”

Comment: Just in case anyone stands in need of a refresher, let’s review the words of Our Lord: “Whosoever [Latin: Quicumque] shall put away his wife and marry another committeth adultery against her. (Mark 10:11)”

“My hope is that we will move towards, without actually accomplishing it this Synod, a genuinely new pastoral approach. Now, at the heart of this, I think there has to be a whole new language”

Comment:” He is speaking of changing language in order to bring about a substantial change. He even tells us that the change being sought after is “far from cosmetic”.He is talking – quite plainly, in fact – of preaching a new Word.”

Headline in the American Jesuit Magazine, “The National Catholic Review” on 9th Dec. 2016:“Australian Archbishop Says the Church Should Not Strive for “False Clarity” .

The article states that“…Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane, Australia, thinks some of his fellow prelates are afraid of confronting reality.”. Archbishop Coleridge said he agrees with a fellow Aussie, Cardinal George Pell, who said in London recently that some Catholics are “unnerved” by the debate about “Amoris Laetitia.”

“I think that’s probably the right word, and I sensed in the words of the four cardinals men who were unnerved,” Archbishop Coleridge said. “Clearly, they had been spoken to by a lot of people who were unnerved. I can understand that.”

Comment:“But where Cardinal Pell went on to suggest the pope needed to offer clarity on the issue, Archbishop Coleridge saidFrancis is simply acting like a pastor.”

Headline:“Conclusions from the Synod on the Family: Brisbane’s Archbishop Coleridge”

Sunday, October 25, 2015

Excerpts:

“Archbishop Coleridge raised ire from some other bishops at the synod when he spoke about divorced and remarried couples and same-sex couples, saying: “I personally think it’s just not in touch with reality to say there is no good in those relationships.”

“We weren’t sure whether he (i.e. pope francis at the end of the synod) would back up and speak again at the end of the Synod, …I started taking notes but I thought, “no, no, no, no, no, put the pen down and just listen to what he’s saying”. And as I listened to Pope Francis speak, I thought, “this is the voice of Peter”.

“It’s either light or darkness, good versus evil, all or nothing, and I just don’t think that’s the way human life works”

Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane, Australia, gave a candid answer at the Vatican press conference on Tuesday to a question posed about the “love the sinner, hate the sin” distinction by LifeSiteNews’ editor-in-chief John-Henry Westen. Coleridge argued that the distinction “no longer communicates” “in the real world” where sexuality is “part of [your] entire being.”

“When we say that this or that act is “intrinsically disordered” or evil, we are taken to be saying that the person who commits the act is “intrinsically disordered” or evil. Because sexuality is no longer seen as being a matter of what a person does; it’s seen now as what a person is… So we can no longer condemn the sin but not the sinner.”

And guess what he is planning:

My comment: Remember how before the last 2 synods there was this questionnaire in all the parishes? This was a very clever way of supporting the radical agenda they had in mind for the previous 2 synods. Well, in the last couple of months, we have all had another questionnaire – I imagine it is to be used for this upcoming synod. I guess he wants to be in the fp’s good books!

Headline in LifeSite News 0n August 19, 2016 (Editorial) : “The first step needed to get the Church out of the current crisis

Excerpts:

“There are plans currently underway for national and diocesan synods on marriage and family based on the controversial Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris Laetitia. While these could, given the ambiguity in the papal exhortation, go either way, seeing who has taken up this proposal gives evidence of a very concerning development.

San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy and Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge have both embarked on the synod pathway with McElroy planning his diocesan synod for October and Coleridge planning a national synod for all Australia in 2020.Coleridge said he expects the national synod to addresshomosexual “marriage” and “ordained ministry” (a likely reference to female clergy), and any other issues of interest”

My comment:Remember how before the last 2 synods there was this questionnaire in all the parishes? Very clever way of supporting the radical agenda they had in mind for the previous two synods. Well, in the last couple of months, we have all had another questionnaire – I imagine it is to be used for this upcoming synod. I guess he wants to impress pf!

The latest horror:

Headline“Catholic archdiocese allows ‘sacrilegious’ semi-nude fashion show in a church – then defends it .

Thu Dec 15, 2016

Excerpts:

“The Catholic archdiocese of Brisbane, which is led by Archbishop Mark Coleridge, has defended the staging of a sexually charged, explicitly anti-Christian ballet and fashion show in a Catholic church.

Held in St. Patrick’s Church in Fortitude Valley in October 2016, the event included an erotically suggestive ballet performed in front of the high altar in the sanctuary, during which an almost nude man and woman, wearing flesh-toned undergarments, re-enacted the fall of Adam and Eve, …

The aisle of St. Patrick’s, a consecrated church in which Mass is held weekly, became the “catwalk” for a fashion show in which models strutted up to the sanctuary to pose before the high altar and tabernacle. In a statement issued on Coleridge’s behalf, archdiocesan spokesperson Aidan Turner asserted “proper precautions” were taken.

“The altar and the Blessed Sacrament were moved before the event and returned after it ended”

My comment:The church building and especially the altar are consecrated – it is Sacred space. The fact that the Bl. Sacrament was removed at the time does not take away the blasphemy that occurred in this Sacred Place. It actually seems very ‘pagan’ to me.

The Archbishop’s Advent letter:

Excerpts from “The Flesh and the Facts: An Advent Pastoral letter 2016”

“…It’s extraordinary to claim that the God whom neither time nor space can contain became a human being at a particular time and in a particular place. But that’s what we celebrate through Advent and the Christmas season. This puts a bomb under any sense that the material world in general and the flesh in particular are bad. In Genesis we’re told that God saw what he had made and found it very good. ( 1:31). Christmas says that God saw what he had made and, seeing its goodness disfigured, decided to become part of his own creation to restore it to the glory he intended from the beginning….

…The challenge now is not to abandon the faith in favour of the facts, but tocreate a new engagement of the faith with the culture of which we’re part – as the logic of the Incarnation demands….”

… During the Synod process of 2014 and 2015 Pope Francis invited the whole Church to consider marriage and the family in the light of the changed and changing facts. This is a vital area where the split between the Gospel and culture is perhaps more apparent than in other areas of human life. What the Church believes and teaches and what the wider culture thinks and does have been moving in different directions for some time. The Church can’t just look the other way in the belief that the wider culture is doomed. That’s not the Catholic way. We are a Church who, because we take the Incarnation seriously, take culture seriously and seek to engage it as creatively as we can.This means we have to be in touch with reality rather than inhabiting some abstract world which can produce what the Holy Father has called“dry andlifeless doctrine” (Amoris Laetitia, 59) and “a cold, bureaucratic morality” (Amoris Laetitia, 312)….

…Pope Francis has spoken often of the need for the whole Church – not just the pastors – to undergo “a pastoral conversion”. The word “pastoral” can mean many things, but it doesn’t mean that we compromise the truths of the faith. It does mean however that we get in touch with the facts of human experience.It means that we, like God, abandon the world of abstraction to engage the real lives of real people in the ways traced by the Pope’s Apostolic Exhortation,“The Joy of Love”. This will mean a new kind of listening to the truth of people’s experience. From a new listening will come a new language that people can understand because it’s in touch with their lives. That’s what it means to be a truly pastoral Church. It’s also what it means to speak of a new evangelisation by a more missionary Church. …”

Comments:

‘a bomb under any sense that the material world in general and the flesh in particular are bad.’ Is the Archbishop accusing certain parts of the church of believing that the world and flesh are ‘bad’?– This is far from the truth. True Catholics know that the flesh is not bad, but if it is used contrary to God’s law, evil results, and Grace is lost. When God created the world (Genesis) it was in reality “Good” and pure. Today, we are born, not pure, but tainted with Original sin and a weakness and disposition to sin. We have to confess our sins and have sorrow in order to return to Grace.

‘dry and lifeless doctrine’ – this doctrine, on the contrary, islife-giving – it leads to eternal life. That which is proposed, where there is no sorrow for sins and no change and conforming to God’s law, leads to hell. Jesus forgave the sinful woman, but He said “Go and sin no more.”

‘engage the real lives of real people in the ways traced by the Pope’s Apostolic Exhortation,’– how about engaging people’s lives in the ways taught by JesusChrist? God doesn’t change His teachings because people can’t cope. Jesus is God and His teachings are for all time for all people to follow.It’s nonsense to think that people can’t cope – there are people who do – in all sorts of circumstances.